“In 2007, we picked up the existence of the emerald ash borer,” Kelly said. “This is a little tiny beetle about a quarter to a half an inch that landed on our shores … about roughly 2002 to 2003. [It] came over from China.

The emerald ash borer is a narrow, hairless, metallic blue-green beetle. The adult ash borer eats the leaves of ash trees while its larvae bore through the bark.

“It’s terrible. The value of those ash trees are about a billion dollars,” Kelly said. “So all we can do is tell people, ‘Hey, this is what’s going to happen.’ Some neighbourhoods are going to be devastated.”

Kelly estimated there are about 804,000 ash trees in Toronto. Many were planted 40 years ago because they are “beautiful” and because they grow quickly.

“I think [the public] will be dismayed,” he said. “A lot of Scarborough, for example, a lot of the subdivisions that were built 30 or 40 years ago now have beautiful, mature ash trees on the boulevards. And you drive through these neighbourhoods and it’s very attractive.

“Well, they’ll be gone in 10 years.”

“It’s going to take a ton of money to take the trees down and it’s going to take a ton of money to replant.”

City council decided April 12 that Toronto is going to cut down the ash trees.

Kelly estimated the cost to take all the affected trees down will be at least $1 billion.

“Right now we don’t have the money for it,” he said. “We are already three quarters of a billion dollars in debt, so this couldn’t have come at a worse time. We will need to get help from the other two levels of government.

“Some of the members of the parks committee said, ‘Well, what are we doing to contain the spread of the disease?’ And the answer is: You can’t. The ash trees are gone. Kiss them goodbye.”

There are some weapons the city can use to combat the bug in the strongest ash trees, Kelly said.

“We’re going to try to save the healthiest and the most prominent ash trees on public property, but everything else goes,” he said.

To help the public with the cost, the City of Toronto will waive the tree-cutting bylaw, which comes with a $100 application fee and mandates an arborist examine the tree to be cut.

“It’s an unexpected cost for the city and for property owners, and we’re going to have to find the money that isn’t being used to cope with this,” Kelly said.